I just want to start off by saying that I’m not nearly as down on this game as most people seem to be. Is it the best game I have ever played? No, not by a long shot, but I have also played much worse. Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s biggest downfall isn’t that it’s an atrocious game, because it isn’t, but rather that it is completely forgettable. In a day and age where military FPS games have to strive very hard to differentiate themselves from the rest of the similar titles, Warfighter just doesn’t do enough to accomplish that lofty goal, and it suffers for it.

It seems that every game that is released in this sub-genre in the recent years has tried to take their own approach in trying to separate themselves from the competition. Battlefield 3 had its completely destructible environments and gorgeous graphics, the Modern Warfare series has a continuing storyline featuring recurring characters like Captain Price, and Medal of Honor had its Tier 1 operators. Now Warfighter has its frankly weird emphasis on door breaching and its attempt at having a personal, emotional storyline.

Warfighter focuses mainly on the story of a Tier 1 operator named Preacher, both in the field and his personal life outside of killing terrorists. Preacher has a wife and daughter, but his work doesn’t allow him to have much time to spend with them. His main goal during the game is to get away from his military life in order to fix the relationship with his family, but of course he continuously gets pulled back into the life of hunting down terrorists to protect the nation. I admire the attempt that Danger Close made to try and give players a more personal and meaningful story outside of shooting people in the face, but unfortunately it just doesn’t hit home the way they intended.

First of all, Preacher’s character just isn’t fleshed out enough for the player to really care what happens to him. Simply giving a soldier a family that we can see doesn’t make him any more personable. All of these soldiers probably have families back home, but that isn’t reason enough to get the player emotionally invested in their lives. The scenes with Preacher and his family do an acceptable job of breaking up the action, but that is all they are really good for unfortunately.

When you aren’t controlling Preacher, you are instead put into the shoes of a soldier nicknamed “Stumps”. I have no idea how he got that name, maybe he has stumps for feet. If so, then he runs extremely well for having such a bad physical deformity. While we may not know a whole lot about Preacher, at least we know something. The same cannot be said for Stumps, who we know absolutely nothing about other than the fact that he is a Tier 1 operator. For all of the emphasis that EA and Danger Close said they were putting towards humanizing the soldiers, It’s a shame to see that they had so many missed opportunities.

As far as gameplay goes, Warfighter has pretty much what players have come to expect from the sub-genre. Boat levels, helicopter levels, a sniping level, etc. The sniping level was head-scratchingly short, only consisting of one shot. The boat and helicopter levels were nothing to write home about either, basically feeling like they were copied and pasted from every other military FPS this generation. There are, however, a couple segments that Warfighter manages to inject some ingenuity and fun into, and those are the car chase levels. There are two different segments where you are put behind the wheel of a car, one has you chasing down another car and the other has you eluding capture. This isn’t Forza of course, but for a military FPS the cars handle surprisingly well, as I very rarely smashed head on into a wall. These parts are arguably the most enjoyable in the entire game, as they are really the only thing that differentiates Warfighter from the competition.

I don’t know how you feel about breaking down doors, but if it’s something you thoroughly enjoy then you really need to go buy this game right now! This game has more destructible doors than you can shake a dead cat at. You can simply kick the doors in, or you can unlock different door breaching techniques like using a shotgun, crowbar, or explosive to take down those pesky doors. I can’t say I fully understand why Danger Close decided to put so much emphasis on door breaching, but at least they give you plenty of options.

The AI in Warfighter is pretty laughable, with enemies often running right out in the open for you to take them down. They aren’t very good at taking cover either, as they will repeatedly run back and forth between two equally terrible hiding places. Unfortunately, your team AI balances it out by being just as stupid. I can’t tell you how many times I took cover behind something, only to have my character inexplicably shoved out into the line of fire by one of my teammates. If you are taking cover in the same place that they want to take cover be ready to be sacrificed like a lamb. Thankfully their aim isn’t too terrible and they allow you to replenish your ammo anytime you need by just walking up to them and holding down a button.

As with all military shooters, the multiplayer is where most of the focus went to. It takes a while for the progression system to really pay dividends, but when it does the multiplayer isn’t half bad. The fire team pairs you up with another player to tackle objectives together and share supplies. It does an admirable job of deterring the lone wolf style of gameplay, instead making you focus on really clicking as a team.

The multiplayer has a generous amount of game modes to choose from, even if most of them are basically the same as what is offered in the countless other military shooters out there. There are a couple of standout modes in the multiplayer, namely Home Run and Hotspot. Home Run has six players on each team and is a team deathmatch mode with objective based gameplay thrown in to boot. Home Run is a very fast paced and frantic mode, making it one of the more enjoyable ways to spend your time with Warfighter. Hotspot has two teams fighting over randomly chosen objectives.

When it comes down to it, the multiplayer and single player have the same main problem, they aren’t innovative. Almost everything that is done in this game has been done in several other games in the past few years. It’s not that Warfighter is all that bad of a game, it’s just that while playing it you feel like you have played it numerous times since the release of the original Modern Warfare. How many times must we be subjected to the same cookie cutter military shooter experience? I applaud Danger Close’s attempt to make a more personal FPS experience, and if they had gotten it right chances are it would have been something special, but as it stands Warfighter is just another military shooter that borrows from other games of its type to create a sub-par experience.

About the Author

I'm 23 years old and a lifelong gamer. My favorite genres are RPG's, Action/Adventure, Survival Horror, and 2D Platformers. I hate being made to pick my favorite game of all time, it's too hard. I'm also a huge movie buff and TV junkie. I also love skydiving... skydiving is awesome.